There was something, which was the turning point: I felt very strongly that women were sexualized, and perceived like they are sexual in every move, and it started off really early.

When you make a film, you come to say something.

Making a film transforms your relationship to the world. And there's some sort of natural authority that builds up along the way.

With a screenwriter and with the actors there is always an environment of trust. You can say anything, all your secrets, and you know that it won't get out of that room.

The foreign-language Oscar is something that doesn't go to the producer or the director; it goes to the country.

I didn't want to do casting in a way that you find yourself in a situation where there's this perfect girl for a part and you just can't cast her because the family says no.

Of course, when you work with actors and when you work on a script everything that you know about the human experience can't possibly go in.

There's something about all the people who are on a mission for purity and chastity, which I find very questionable.

A great giftwe can giveto ourselvesis a willingnessto love everyone, no matter what.This frees us completely from the toxicjustificationswe use to hate.

Reality has become so intolerable, she said, so bleak, that all I can paint now are the colors of my dreams.

American business has just forgotten the importance of selling.

The question in life is not whether you get knocked down. You will. The question is, are you ready to get back up... And fight for what you believe in?

The person who is ignorant enough to believe that his nourishment depends on meat is in a horrible dilemma.

Authority is God ordained, but authoritarianism and raw power, in almost all forms, is dangerous.

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love.

It's already 95 degrees outside. Mississippi got the most unorganized weather in the nation.

Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us.

I'm like tax. You're going to pay one way or the other.